Several Russian MPs and members of the country’s National Olympic Committee have harshly criticized the suggestion to boycott the winter games in Sochi voiced by US Senator Lindsey Graham.

The Republican Senator from South Carolina told The Hill
newspaper that President Barack Obama should consider boycotting
the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi if Russian authorities granted
asylum to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, a move Graham
described as “outrageous”, “a breach of the rule of
law” and “a slap in the face to the United States”.

Soon after the interview was published, the Russian Federal
Migration Service reported on Wednesday that it had received
Snowden’s request for temporary asylum and would now consider it
for up to three months. But even with the whistleblower’s fate
yet undecided, several Russian officials immediately reacted at
the Senator’s call for boycott, saying that it was a throwback to
the Cold War and absurd as it is not allowed by the rules of the
Olympics.

The head of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, Aleksey
Pushkov, said that Senator Graham’s statement was “pulling us
back to the distant past, the time of mutual boycotts when our
two states were looking at each other through nuclear
sights”. "I am sure that these times are over and
difficult periods in relations must not bring the nations to the
worst times of the Cold War,” the parliamentarian added.

MP Vasily Shestakov (United Russia), who is a member of the Lower
House Committee for Sports, said that he was sure that the US
authorities would ignore Senator Graham’s words, adding that they
have not even been supported by any of his colleagues. “I hope
that certain politicians in the United States would stop making
populist statements and start thinking more about their own
citizens,” Shestakov noted.

The politician reminded of the partial boycott of the 1980 Summer
Olympics in Moscow and the retaliatory boycott of the 1984 games
in Los Angeles and emphasized that these moves mostly hurt the
athletes who were preparing for the games for their whole lives.
“Can you imagine what the sportsmen feel when someone tries to
get PR credit by making such statements?” Shestakov
asked.

Russian Senator Ruslan Gattarov said that Graham’s call “only
demonstrated that the United States cannot influence some country
by means of their Army and Navy and so they start making
political declarations that at once diminish themselves,”
Gattarov stated. “The US has found itself in
an uncomfortable position when it was
eavesdropping on people in the whole world, undermining its
reputation as a beacon of democracy and due to Graham’s
declarations America for the second time undermined its
reputation of a state that follows democratic principles and that
is capable of a constructive dialogue,” the Russian senator
added.

"Graham: US should consider Olympic boycott over possible
#Snowden
asylum" Last boycott was re Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Irony? #tlot

The honorary president of the Russian Olympics Committee, Vitaly
Smirnov, said that boycotts were banned by the Olympics rules and
explained that previously nations never openly declared their
political motives, but instead blamed the lack of funds or some
other excuse.

“The Olympic Games is an international event and athletes are
invited not by the organization committees, but by the
International Olympic Committee. I can only feel sorry for the
people who influence the Congress’s decision, this unhealthy
reaction of certain people must not be supported by the whole
nation,” Smirnov said.

Russia’s representative in the International Olympic Committee,
world champion swimmer Aleksandr Popov stressed in comments that
sports had always been out of politics and suggested to wait for
official reaction from the IOC’s leaders. “The USA is a
democracy and anyone can afford any sort of statements there. But
it is obvious that sports and politics are not connected between
each other,” the Russian sports official noted.